Help a newbie out?

[VeloFellow]

I'm pretty new to fishing and fishing up in this western lake erie region, and have been reading a lot from this forum, especially the fishing reports? Sometimes I feel like I'm reading a foreign language with the locations and descriptions of bait and lures and was wondering if anyone has a quick reference of locations people talk about on here (B can? C can? some of the reefs)? I think with the baits I can usually figure out what someone is talking about after I research it a bit, but would be curious if anyone has some general references for that as well. I appreciate all the great information on here and look forward to the reports every day while I'm at work wishing I was out fishing!

Thanks.

[Century]

lake erie gps.pdf

GPS coordinates sheet someone gave me long time back

[VeloFellow]

lake erie gps.pdf

GPS coordinates sheet someone gave me long time back

Thank you, very helpful!

[West Basin]

Century,

I don't have time right now to put links to all these things. You can do your own Internet searches to find them.

Start with this one. It's a NOAA chart of the Western Basin of Lake Erie, interactive:

Chart 14830

The purple box you see is the Camp Perry National Guard Base firing range. It has Buoys, both large "can" buoys and smaller buoys, that mark the range border. Most times the mention of a letter can, such as "D can", means one of the larger Can Buoys spaced out around the range border. They start with "A" can at the NW corner and work around clockwise.

Same with other navigation buoys around the Basin. People will call them by name (green bell buoy off Mioddle Bass Long Point) or location (Starve Island Reef Buoy).

Points of land are also often used, such as Lucy's Point (the long shoal off the NE corner of Middle Bass Island). BUT, you need to be aware that some people use different names for the same place, and in some cases, such as Cedar Point, there are two places with the same name (Cedar Point in Sandusky, the Amusement Park, and Cedar Point in Maumee Bay).

Once you get familier with the chart bouys and land point names (on the chart), you will be well on your way to understanding what people on this forum, and anywhere else, are talking about. Then with experience you'll figure out what some of the other references refer to. If you don't know - ask.

[nickpaolini81]

Best online tool i've found: Used to be called Navionics. Looks like Garmin now.
https://maps.garmin.com/en-US/marine...y=dprn0z0yyydm

[itsbob]

Can really speed up the learning curve by booking a trip with a charter captain.They can really help you learn about fishing locations and the gear to fish with.Do you have a preference to cast or troll for walleye?

[VeloFellow]

I did a charter earlier this year with Captain Ned. We were casting on that trip and I learned a lot from that charter. We fished mostly east of Kelly's and north of Cedar Point at that time around the dumping grounds. We did hit some reef later in the day in that area too but I can't remember exactly where it was. Since then it sounds like most of the hot spots have moved west from what I'm reading. When I go out I've mostly been drifting because that's what we did on the charter. Just for giggles I did throw a line off the back while I was moving and something big bit it. Unfortunately the line I had wasn't strong enough for whatever was on there and it ran out all my line and snapped it. I plan on trying trolling next time I get out.

Can really speed up the learning curve by booking a trip with a charter captain.They can really help you learn about fishing locations and the gear to fish with.Do you have a preference to cast or troll for walleye?

[sherman51]

I'm pretty new to fishing and fishing up in this western lake erie region, and have been reading a lot from this forum, especially the fishing reports? Sometimes I feel like I'm reading a foreign language with the locations and descriptions of bait and lures and was wondering if anyone has a quick reference of locations people talk about on here (B can? C can? some of the reefs)? I think with the baits I can usually figure out what someone is talking about after I research it a bit, but would be curious if anyone has some general references for that as well. I appreciate all the great information on here and look forward to the reports every day while I'm at work wishing I was out fishing!

Thanks.

I started fishing the western basin around 1980 and it was easy to just drift with weight forward spinners 3/8 oz to 1/2 oz is all we needed. we used spinning gear and just let out line. then set our rods against the gunnal and drifted letting the boat do all the work. a few years later the water cleared from the zebra mussel and the fish numbers dropped, so we switched to trolling. we used Hot n Tots and Wigglewarts as our go to baits then. but we wasn't above using anything in our tackle box if things were slow. those cranks caught many limits for us. but now you have a wider choice, deep husky jerks, bandits, and many other cranks to choose from. but if I was going to troll I would try a few Hot n Tots and Wigglewarts. catching fish drifting is a lot more fun than trolling. I would get a few weight forward spinners 3/8 oz to 5/8 oz if I was going to try drifting.

we fished out of Cooly Canal and docked at Menekee Marina once we started docking our boat. but the 1st few years we used the public dock and parking lot to camp and left our boat tied to the bank. after coming out to the lake we normally went out past the intake about 3/4 of the way to west sister island and started drifting. some days we started trolling near the water intake and did great. but most of our fishing was just south of the island to the northwest of the island.

when we moved to the central basin we bought line counter reels. we didn't have a clue how to fish the deep water and had never seen a dipsy diver. so we went out on a charter that ran dipsies for 2 trips. the second day we was doing everything with the caption watching over us. then we could run 3 dipsies per side on my boat. we did make mistakes and had our share of tangles. but we caught fish while still learning. we gained more knowledge about fishing dipsies in those 2 days than we would have learned in years starting out blind.

[itsbob]

It's definitely easier to drift fish than get all the gear necessary to try trolling. The more you fish the better you will become with learning locations and terminology here on this website. Most people don't provide location on where they are catching though. A few do, but that probably is the most important part to catching fish. Fishing where the current fish are schooling and biting.Good luck.

[DW72]

This info is in my fish finder but....before that I used to use and and still use the Navionics phone app. It's $50 per year and awesome. Can use it on any lake or area basically...open water, ice fishing, mapping for snowmobiling, etc. I still use it for backup purposes, to do research with at home, to share screenshots with friends, etc. You could consider that also.